A network service provider is a business organization that sells bandwidth or network access by providing direct backbone access to the Internet and usually access to its network access points. A wireless service provider (also referred to as a cellular company, mobile network operator, wireless carrier, or mobile network carrier) is a type of network service provider that owns or controls elements necessary to sell and deliver services to an end user including, in a non-exhaustive list, radio spectrum allocation, wireless network infrastructure, back haul infrastructure, and billing. Wireless service providers provide wireless communications services to end users, typically through a cellular network.
A cellular network is a radio network using varying radio frequencies over land areas called cells. Each cell is served by at least one fixed location transceiver (e.g., radio/cell tower). Radio waves are used to transfer signals between the fixed location transceiver and a cellular phone or device. The transceiver may pass signals along to other cellular capable devices within the cell, to another transceiver, or to a wired network connection. Many mobile computing devices, such as tablet computers and smartphones, are a capable of accessing a cellular network. Wireless service providers provide this access to registered mobile computing devices, typically under terms of a wireless contract. The cell tower typically acts as the network access point to the mobile computing device.
However, not all computing devices are capable of accessing a cellular network. For example, many laptops only support Wi-Fi wireless technology. Wi-Fi has a much shorter wireless range determined by wireless network access points (or hotspots), such as wireless routers, connected on the back end to an adjacent wired LAN. Mobile computing devices that are capable of connecting to a cellular network are often additionally capable of short range wireless communication, for example through Wi-Fi. Wi-Fi also allows communications directly from one computing device to another without an access point intermediary. This is called ad hoc Wi-Fi transmission. In this manner, a wireless computing device can share their cellular Internet connection using ad-hoc Wi-Fi transmission, becoming hotspots or “virtual routers.”